Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/140

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there may be many crooked lines. The truth is always a single thing, but the error,—no man knows what it may be. No compromise makes possible unity of accord by giving people one standard on which they can rely, and by supplying confidence in the stability of men and their convictions. But we cannot follow the compromising man, for as soon as he gets out of our sight we do not know where he will be.

It is the man who makes no compromise, who stands fast by truth, that we know we can locate. It was that which gave Stonewall Jackson his huge power as a leader of men in the Civil War. He was a man of the most unflinching Christian convictions. He was one who never moved the breadth of a hair from his loyalty to his Lord or to truth as he saw truth in the presence of his Lord. Colonel Henderson draws for us a rich picture of the great soldier's character and it is full of genial and kindly touches, but it is faithful also in its account of the man's rigid and inflexible righteousness.


"Jackson's religion entered into every action of his life. No duty, however trivial, was begun without asking a blessing, or ended without returning thanks. 'He had long cultivated,' he said, 'the habit of connecting the most trivial and customary acts of life with a silent prayer.' He took the Bible as his guide, and it is possible that his literal interpretation of its precepts caused many to regard him as a fanatic. His observance of the Sabbath was